The present disclosure relates generally to the field of semiconductor manufacturing and, more particularly, to a system and method for N2 purge.
The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced rapid growth. Technological advances in IC materials and design have produced generations of ICs where each generation has smaller and more complex circuits than the previous generation. However, these advances have increased the complexity of processing and manufacturing ICs and, for these advances to be realized, similar developments in IC processing and equipments are needed.
Furthermore, as the IC industry has matured, various operations to produce an IC may be performed at different locations by a single company or by different companies that specialize in a particular area. This further increases the complexity of producing ICs, as companies and their customers may be separated geographically, possibly in different time zones, making effective communication more difficult. For example, a first company (e.g., an IC design house) may design a new IC, a second company (e.g., an IC foundry) may provide the processing facilities used to fabricate the design, and a third company may assemble and test the fabricated IC. A fourth company may manage the overall manufacturing of the IC, including coordination of the design, processing, assembly, and testing operations.
Nitrogen and other inert gases are widely used to prevent oxidation of wafers during manufacturing. For example, nitrogen purge processing is often performed during 300 mm and deep submicron IC manufacturing. Typical nitrogen purge processing involves manual handling and non-systematic control of production wafers and equipment and, therefore, encounters problems with low efficiency, contamination and inconsistency, especially with larger wafer sizes, including 300 mm wafers and larger.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method that addresses the issues discussed above.